Missing 3-Year-Old Saved By Family Farm Dog That Rescuers Found The Next Day Keeping Him Warm A Mile From Home

A North Dakota couple was joyfully reunited with their 3-year-old little boy in the early morning Tuesday after several frantic hours of search and it’s all thanks to their farm dog Cooper.
Carson Urness had been playing outside in the chilly early spring all day Monday when his mother Courtney went to bring him in for dinner. But when the toddler was nowhere to be found, it kicked off an hours-long manhunt that ended like the most heartwarming of Lassie tales.

Image: WDAY

‘I lost it I guess you could say,’ Courtney Urness told WDAY from her expansive family farm in Cooperstown. Though it was May, it was sure to get cold at night in rural North Dakota. The only thing keeping the young mom remotely calm was the knowledge her dog was missing along with little Carson. ‘You think of the worst, but then I knew Cooper was gone. If anyone was going to find him, they’d just have to find Cooper,’ Courtney said. A team of 200 family and friend volunteers, a search plane and a search dog were enlisted to find Carson as the sun soon set over Cooperstown.

As the evening dragged past midnight into early morning and just as things became desperate, Carson was found. ‘He was a mile away,’ said Carson’s flummoxed father Brock. Laying on top of the boy in the cold night, firemen found the dog the Urness’s rescued as a puppy now rescuing Carson. ‘Great dog. I just didn’t realize that he would actually be keeping him warm and protecting him,’ Courtney said.
Her husband agreed: ‘I was really proud of him.’